ANNUALSOf books issued serially once a year two special classes have particularly interested collectors.(1) The anthologies of prose and/or verse, usually illustrated with steel engravings, which were a feature of late Regency and early Victorian publishing in England: copied originally from German and French models. Examples are The Keepsake, The Book of Beauty, Friendship’s Offering, The Literary Souvenir. These were the gift books or ‘table books’ of the day, and many of them contain first printings of work by famous authors, often anonymous.(2) The Christmas annuals issued late in the 19th century by the publishers of popular or fashionable magazines;...
Deflation Comes to the Rare Book Market (Cheers! Boos!)
The following two-part post recently appeared in Fine Books & Collections magazine. Due to its importance to the rare book community, the C in C of Book Patrol asked that I reprint it here. Part Two will appear tomorrow (June 7th) with an update exclusive to Book Patrol.The title of Americana Exchange's latest analysis of the book auction market succinctly sums up what those in the trade have been feeling for quite some time - A Market Under Pressure. It is the next logical step in the democratization of the rare book business that began with the introduction of the...
Michael Jackson “Extremely Well-Read,” Had 10,000 Books
The King of Pop a dweeby book lovin’ geek?Apparently so, and hooray. He was an avid reader who had an appropriately majestic library at Neverland that held 10,000 volumes on its shelves, according to two recent Los Angeles newspaper articles.In the midst of a lengthy interview in the L.A. Weekly, Jackson attorney Bob Sanger revealed the following as his last of three golden attributes that defined the Gloved One.“Michael was extremely well-read…I knew Michael, but I got to know him a lot better at the trial. The judge was doing jury selection, and it was time for break. Judge Melville...
ABC’s of Book Collecting : Ana
ANAA collective noun meaning a compilation of sayings, table talk, anecdotes, etc. Southey described Boswell’s Johnson as ‘the Ana of all Anas’. Its most familiar use is, however, the original one (from which the noun was made) in the form of a Latin suffix meaning material related to as distinct from material by; e.g. Boswelliana, Railroadiana, Etoniana. Like other such suffixes it is not always easily attachable to English names, even assisted, as commonly, by a medial i. Shaviana, Harveiana and Dickensiana are well enough; but Hardyana is repugnant to latinity, Cloughiana and Fieldingiana are awkward on the tongue, and...
"Twitterature" Has Book World Atwitter
Two nineteen year old freshmen at the University of Chicago have scored a publishing deal for their book, Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less, to be released later this year by Penguin.The students, Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman, “had an epiphany,” they declare on their website. "What, we asked, are the grandest ventures of our or any generation? And what, to give this a bit more focus, best expresses the souls of 21st century Americans?"Their answer: that the two most important platforms of expression for their generation were literature and Twitter, and so they...